Assessment for Learning
Formative assessment is is every nook and cranny of a classroom. One of my strengths as a person and an educator is my proficiency for people, and I will continue to hone these skills as I continue to work with teenagers throughout my career. Other types of formative assessment I have used in the classroom include daily exit slips, use of whiteboards, sticky notes, observation of work and habits, and secret ballot questions of the material presented in class (in order to respond to question anonymously for those who are self conscious).
Assessment of Learning
Summative assessment, which usually happens at the end of a unit, or can be considered anything that is collected for grades. Throughout a unit, I like to assess midway through the unit and at the end of a unit. After a few years of practicing teaching in a consistent school, I would love to build a relationship with students in which they take my formative assessment as seriously as my summative assessment, but until that time, I will likely stick to assessing summatively (for marks) for than once a semester.
My favourite piece of summative assessment I have given in a classroom thus far is a blog project that came at the end of a social justice and geography unit where the students were asked to explore the Downtown Eastside newspaper for articles regarding solutions for poverty and social justice issues in Vancouver. Other options, such as attending a local neighbourhood house to cook and have conversations about food security, or volunteering with a non-profit that works with the homeless (see below).
Assessment as Learning
Assessment as Learning is a wonderful tool for garnering the self-awareness, self-regulation and accountability that I endeavour to introduce and develop in my students, as you have read in my teaching philosophy. Not only does it minimize the time that I may have to spend marking assignments, but it allows student to interact with work both better and worse than their own. Especially during my practicum, when the students were just getting used to the IB MYP rubrics, self and peer assessment was a huge asset to have students really understand how their work is getting marked and why they received the mark they did.